Monday, April 29, 2013

Part 4 of this journey along the Appalachian Trail features another eleven of my favorite versions of the iconic AT logo/monogram as interpreted in various media by local artists and seen right along the trail.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Here come eleven more of my favorite AT monogram 'signatures' along the trail, featuring a wide variety of sizes, shapes and media. There's even one here that is totally nature-made that I found on a rock right on the trail in (where else?) Pennsylvania. Enjoy.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Soon after I started my double thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail last year, I came across a remarkable poster by Sara Jones, in which she assembled 444 different photos of AT monograms/logos and initials during her 2008 thru-hike.

That poster inspired me to begin 'photo-collecting' them myself as I hiked. Here's a sampling of a handful of my favorites, selected for variety--examples of the various 'media' on which the logo/monogram appears. There will be more to come in coming posts. Enjoy.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

The biggest life lesson I gained from walking 4,300 miles on the Appalachian Trail in 2012 is the simplest one: walking makes you healthy.

By 'healthy' I mean 'feeling good' - nothing more complex than that.

There are plenty of studies that prove that regular exercise reduces risk of heart disease and stroke, lowers levels of bad cholesterol, reduces risk of diabetes, etc. etc. If you exercise you're likely to live longer. Wonderful.

But if you're like me, these abstract studies aren't motivation enough to get up off the couch. My daily life does not revolve around worrying about my life expectancy--that's not a healthy attitude. Far better to be living today to the fullest regardless--as if there are no guarantees about tomorrow. And I expect most people agree. Give me something that enhances today's experience and I'm all in.

Well, that's what walking the AT showed me. For 270 days I walked an average of about sixteen miles per day at barely over two miles per hour--on the low end of what's considered 'moderate exercise'. That's about the pace normal people walk doing normal things like walking their dog.

Before I started my AT hike I had suffered from chronic back pain for eight years--almost continuous daily discomfort. When I finished my hike I suddenly realized that all that back pain was gone--completely gone. Not diminished, gone.

For me, that alone was enough. But I also felt a general increased sense of well-being. I felt clear-headed, sharper of mind. These daily 'quality of life' metrics are hard to pin down in any concrete way, and they can be affected by plenty of non-exercise related factors that enter one's daily life style. Maybe I felt happier because I had just taken a ten-month 'vacation' in a beautiful natural environment. Well, maybe that's part of the point.

So start there. No sweat or heavy breathing, just go out and take a mini-vacation in the woods or in a park and unwind.

Next, consider the relative benefits of being on the move rather than being a couch potato. Again no sweat or heavy breathing, just toodling around in the park or the mall, or cleaning out the closet--whatever keeps you from that deadly sedentary position. It's called N.E.A.T. (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) and we all do it anyhow. The link above discusses the very real benefits of simply adjusting your life style a little--again no real exercise involved.

Now if you add a true walk into this mix--preferably several times a week, you'll get closer to the full 'inoculation' against all those nasty cardiovascular problems. Here's a good comprehensive discussion of how just plain walking is all you really need for a healthy lifestyle.

And then there's this recent study that confirms the benefits of walking and puts it on par with the full aerobic workouts that running provides, but without the body-pounding injury risks of running.

Now, finally, if you want to go the whole way, try doing just ONE MINUTE of high intensity exercise three times a week. You can do this by just running up a single flight of stairs a few times each day during the course of your every day activities--no jogging suit, no gyms, nothing. Recent revolutionary studies show that this H.I.T. (High intensity training) regimen gives you all the benefits of prolonged aerobic exercise. The key is to really go all-out for just 20 or 30 seconds. Don't try this unless you're limbered up, though--don't want any pulled muscles, etc. In a recent PBS documentary, physician Michael Mosley discusses and tries the HIT regimen, and finds that it does what it claims.

Now here's the bottom line--the take-away point: Nothing I've recommended above, with the possible exception of taking a long walk, needs to change the way you live your exercise-averse lifestyle. Just try to find an excuse to spend more time doing the active things you already like to do. Stand up and pace around while talking on the phone. Get out and walk at lunchtime rather than spending the entire lunch break in a chair. Take the steps rather than the elevator. Park a little further away from the grocery store and walk the extra few dozen yards. It all adds up. Then try a few walks in the woods--get out and smell the flowers. If it feels good, keep it up! Here's to your health.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

... was also a Sunday. And Sunday April 7th, 1968 was a beautiful warm spring day in central Pennsylvania. I had spent all night partying and then working on my 'epic' poem about 'the future of man' that would eventually become the novel 'Eden's Womb'. So I had already been up for nearly 24 hours when my good friend 'Perfid Sam' convinced me that we should seize the day and head out for a hike. It turned out to be a 25 miler, lasting all day. Neither of us had a car back then, so we left the campus of Penn State University on foot and eventually found ourselves trekking north along railroad tracks somewhere near Bellefonte, PA.

And there, up in the woods, far from any signs of civilization (except for the track) we came upon a girl wending her way up a hillside. We never got close enough to speak with her or even to get a good look at her. And I don't think she even noticed us. Yet I'll never forget that moment because Sam, with his usual off-beat wit, dubbed her 'Wendy', and we began to concoct outrageous stories about how she came to be there and where she was going -- surely a wood sprite, I thought. Surely not a mortal, Sam agreed.

After all these years this little incident has stuck in my mind. And Wendy has wended her way into my novel. She is introduced as an old woman, her travels now long past, in the early part of Book II.

Perfid Sam, of course, is also in 'Eden's Womb' as Adam's noble side-kick.

There are very few other characters in 'Eden's Womb' that are consciously based on real people. So this 'crop' drawn from a walk in the woods so long ago seems worthy of special mention on its anniversary.

I'm posting more chapters of 'Eden's Womb' here all the time. I hope you'll find the time to read them. Meanwhile spring weather is finally coming to the eastern US, so get out there and take a walk. Wend your way through the woods for a few hours--there's no telling what mythical beings you might run across.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

West of Eden is one of Harry Harrison’s more notable works of science fiction. I gravitated to it because of its extensive world building. West of Eden was first published in 1984, just a few years after Jean Auel’s ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’, and there are similarities in the ‘feel’ of the two books. Both carry the reader into hypothetical worlds occupied by stone-age humans and a significant antagonist species. In the case of Auel, the species is the Neanderthal. In the case of West of Eden, it’s a much bolder premise: What if the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct, but instead evolved into intelligent beings?

West of Eden takes place at the onset of an ice age. The cold blooded intelligent dinosaurs are looking for a new place to establish one of their organic mega-cities because one of the established cities, built all of living, bio-engineered trees and other plants, is dying as the climate cools. The location they choose is across the ocean from all their previous cities. Yes, somehow the dinosaurs had never colonized North America. That’s one of several plot devices that, for me, required a suspension of disbelief. How could a species that originates in the ocean, has ocean-going capabilities, and has a multi-million-year history of intelligence not have previously populated every corner of their world? Yet even more difficult to swallow is the fact that these intelligent dinosaurs do not use fire in any form and barely seem to understand or appreciate how it works. This despite the fact that they have capability in medicine, bio-engineering and many other disciplines comparable to or exceeding those of 21st century real world humans.

Okay, so suspending my disbelief, I plunged into the story and thoroughly enjoyed it. Almost as soon as the dinosaur colonists arrive in the ‘New World’ they have a bloody encounter with the stone age humans, who apparently evolved from new world apes and do not live on any other part of this world. The dinosaurs capture a human boy, Kerrick, who becomes the focal point of the story. After years of captivity during which he learns much about Yilanè (dinosaur) culture, Kerrick escapes and returns to his own people. The remainder of the tale centers on the efforts by both sides to eradicate the other, utterly and completely. Harrison chooses to entirely dismiss the possibility of co-existence.

The human culture is reasonably familiar—taking many cues from Native American cultures. But the effort spent by the author to create a rich Yilanè culture and language is a true tour de force. So although the conflict and resolution of the plot are not particularly compelling or original, it is this exquisite example of the Sci-Fi author’s craft of world building that earns ‘West of Eden’ a solid 4.5 out of a possible 5 stars. Highly recommended.

"Not all who wander are lost." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Welcome. Here is a site about traveling the old fashioned way—on foot.

“…the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours—as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day."

— Henry David Thoreau

For me, purposeful walking lies at the heart a well-lived life. Walking defines us as a species. We are the ape who left the trees to explore the world. Walking made us curious and adaptable, which led to tool making, agriculture, community, and perhaps to the point of forgetting that it was our two feet that got us here. In myself I find the purest peace experiencing this world in the simple way of our distant ancestors.

“
…walk in a way that … print[s] peace and serenity on the Earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

I started this blog after I retired from NASA, so that family could follow my bucket-list treks. I’m still trekking. See the ‘Hopping Rocks’ tab for details. Sharing the joy of my walks just amps up the joy-meter. This is a labor of love.